scott.projectsomewhere

Yes, I am absolutely crazy when it comes to sailing…

I flew down to Melbourne to go sailing on Saturday on Rohan’s foiler Moth. An interesting experience to say the
least.

The weather was typical Melbourne… ordinary. We knew to wait
through the calm since the weather will always change several times
during the day. And it did.

I went foiling and did a two races against Amac sailing Garth’s “On
the Prowl”. I raced Rohan’s World Champ boat.

It’s pretty safe to say that foiling around is awesome fun. But its
only fun when you can get it up… otherwise it feels like your
dragging someone in the water behind you… ie. not fast. I could
get it up ok most of the time, although upwind was tricky. In the
choppy/light conditions it was hard to stay up, and not launch. It
was also hard to work out what to do when it did go up. Do you
steer down and ease? Up and sheet in? Heel to windward or leeward?
Weight in or out? Forward or back? I tried various combinations of
the above but couldn’t find something that worked all the time.
More often than not the boat did whatever it felt like doing.

Racing was also different. I was miles behind Amac, then next to
him, then ahead, equal, miles behind (ie 500m+), then beside, then
behind. The race is absolutely dependant on who can foil and foil
for the longest.

Its also pretty safe to say foiling is a complete revolution in
Moth sailing. Most of the skills from Hungry Tigers are there, but
there is a stack of new techniques that need to be mastered before
the foiler is even competitive against the Tiger.

I did get pretty frustrated towards then end, when I was dead tired
(I haven’t hiked in a year) and the stupid thing wouldn’t foil. It
was very likely due to a broken linkage between the main-foil
adjuster and the sensor arm. More moving parts = more parts to
break.

So foiler Mothing is another huge challenge, but is it a challenge
worth taking?

The investment that needs to be made in time, effort, money,
training, fitness and enthusiasm is big. The match the level of
Rohan will take a few years and a lot of effort, to pass him will
take an absolutely incredible amount of effort. The pace that he is
developing new boats, new sails and new skills is
frightening.

Phil is going for the silver-bullet approach in his next
incarnation. I’m more inclined (since I don’t have the time to both
build a foiler and learn how to sail it) to buy enough kit to
become at least materially equivalent - then spend the rest of the
time learning how to sail and race. The problem is that Fastacraft would take a year or
more to get a boat to me* - and that’s just
useless.

The advantage that NSW has is a group of Mothies that (if they had
the kit) could work together to both improve it and themselves.
That’s not going to happen any time soon, but its a nice
idea.

Decisions decisions…

Update: It’s going to get harder to get hold of a foiler now, with
Rohan’s boat being snapped up by a loaded Euro offering too much
money. Back to the drawing board on that plan…

Update #2: John’s schedule has
improved a lot, and I could have a new boat somewhere around
April/May! /* reaches for chequebook */

A report I wrote on the Aussie Championships, a bit late, fairly
dry and boring… oh well.

–

A high-quality fleet from around Australian and across the World
came together at Wangi, Lake Macquarie for the 6th 29er Australian
Championships.

Conditions for the week of racing ranged from light easterlies to
howling Southerly winds. With such a variety of conditions, and
such close competition, the series points were tight right to the
finish.

Finnish 29er Women’s World Champion Silja Lehtinen teamed up with
Australian Scott Babbage to take out the regatta. Great starts put
the team ahead of the competition, but good speed and smart tactics
brought the locals through.

Beau Outteridge & ISAF World Youth Champion Nathan Outteridge
sailed smart to be first Australians in 2nd place overall. Despite
an OCS and several inconsistent results, the Outteridge’s were
always close to the front on the overall pointscore.

Another young local team and SIRS winners Jamie Woods & Iain
Jensen were fast through the heavier conditions. However when the
pressure was on in the light airs of the final day, Woods &
Jensen fell out of contention to place 3rd overall.

Current Australian Champion and Australia’s best placed
representative at the 2004 World Championships, Dave O’Connor
brought World Champion crew Alain Sign from the UK in an effort to
take back-to-back championships. With blazing fast speed at times,
the new combination lacked the consistency to win the series when
points were tallied.

Two US boats made the trip over to take advantage of the strong
fleet, both finishing inside the top 10. The next World
Championships are scheduled for San Francisco in July and O’Connor
& Babbage will team up again, along with several of the other
top Australians and several former 29er Champions in an effort to
bring the World Championship trophy back.

Looks as if the organisers had too much vodka and forgot to read
the rules…

“Due to an IOC requirement that obligates a country bidding to hold
the Olympic Games to refrain from holding world titles prior to
July 6th, the May 2005 49er Worlds have had to be delayed. The 49er
Executive Committee is working on re-scheduling the Moscow Worlds
to a date in August 2005. We will publicize the new dates as soon
as they are confirmed”

Not
a bad start by dad in the green boat, tho not looking too fast off
the line, not much of a gap to leeward and the boats at the other
end are lifting inside.

Wonder how that race ended up?

Well at least we know there’s one Aussie definitely going to the
upcoming 29er Worlds…

John Winning has picked up at $10k sponsorship deal from one of his
dad’s mates, and is sure to be there in semi-competitive
fashion.

Not that he exactly needs the money, but good luck to him I
say.

If you’re only as good as your last race - then after this weekend
I’m not very good at all!

It started off badly and only got worse. I naively accepted an
offer to sheet for a random guy called craig on his “new” 16′ skiff
for Saturday. Now when I turned up at midday to go sailing, I found
that the new (new is one way to describe it - but I wouldn’t) boat
only had a #2 rig… on a #1 rig day! An absolute ridiculous waste
of time going sailing in light airs in a boat that’s geared for
blowing-dogs-off-chains conditions. Anyway, lets put that one down
to experience. I’ve vowed never to sail such a lemon of a boat
again - what a woftam. We didn’t come last, but that doesn’t say
much for the people behind us.

So I was looking forward to Sunday.

The 18′ racing was just a bad - but probably more disappointing.
The start was painful with the boat going into irons as the fleet
sailed away. We rounded ok and the fleet stayed close. Slowly
(literally) we dropped back, and back, and back til there was
pretty much no-one behind us - and at about that time we finished -
thank christ for that. We didn’t break all that much tho, only both
pulleys on the spinnaker halyard - so it wouldn’t go up or down
(lucky the race was only 2 laps). We also broke something at the
gooseneck - at least there was a sickening bang on the last work.
There was nothing visibly broken when we got to the beach, but I
wouldn’t be suprised to see the rig fall out of the boat if we
don’t do a pretty thorough check over things.

It is such a pain having things breakdown when you’re sailing, but
we effectively need to throw a chandlery full of kit at the boat to
get everything working as it should. erk.

So we’re struggling to qualify for the Worlds right now. 3 heats to
go, with a lot of catching up to do.

And did I mention I’m off for a flying (literally) visit to
Melbourne to see if Mothing is back in fashion….